I remember when I left the Mormon church, I didn’t want to admit to anyone that I had been a less than perfect Mormon. You see, when you leave the LDS Church, the people who stay start looking for all kinds of reasons why you left, reasons which have to do with your own moral failings. They can’t admit that anything might be wrong with the Church, so something has to be wrong with you.

But I was a less than ideal Mormon. I didn’t obey all the rules, I didn’t pray as often as I was supposed to, and so on. Now I have the perspective and wisdom to recognize that nobody obeyed all the rules or prayed as much as they were supposed to. Well, maybe somebody did. But those people are scary. And they’re also a very small minority.

The same is true of Pagans, I think. I suspect that very few of us are practicing with as much consistency as we claim to. And that’s okay.

Nevertheless, I’m still a little sensitive to accusations of being “non-practicing”. First, for the reasons I explained above. But second, because there is a confusion among many people about what it means to be a non-theistic or naturalistic Pagan. Many polytheists, for example, can’t seem to imagine what a spiritual practice would look like without gods. And so they wrongly assume that non-theistic Pagans don’t have a spiritual practice.

There are, of course, Pagans of all theological varieties who do not practice at all. I’ve seen them referred to as “cultural Pagans” or “secular Pagans.” But I am neither of these things. And it is a mistake to confuse secular Pagans with non-theistic Pagans. “Non-theistic” does not mean “secular.” The one has to do with religious belief, while the other has to do with religious practice. (See the chart to the right.)

While I am reluctant to respond to suggestions that I prove my Paganism to anyone, I do think it is important to educate people about what a non-theistic Pagan practice might look like. My practice is very idiosyncratic. It evolved over years in an intuitive fashion. It includes morning and evening devotionals at my altar. My morning devotion is more outward-oriented and involves invocations of the air, sun, water, and earth, while my evening devotion is more inward-oriented and involves invocations to personal archetypes. I say a prayer over meals (when I remember) and, at the eight stations of the Wheel of the Year, I pour different libations over the headstone of an ancestor which sits in my backyard garden. I also have written Wheel of the Year rituals for my family, which usually involve song, story, a dramatic reenactment, and a fun activity. I’ve written about all of this many times before on my blog.

I am unabashedly eclectic. Unlike many non-theistic Pagans, my altar does contain images of deities and some of my invocations use theistic language. Some polytheists may find this to be appropriative, but for me these images and language are sacred, and I treat them as such. I also use language and imagery borrowed from popular media and classic literature, anything which I experience as numinous, as evoking that larger dimension of life, may be incorporated into my rituals.

Through these rituals, we seek to connect to something greater than ourselves, whether that be the cosmos, the earth, the web of life, the human community, or our deeper selves. We also use ritual express our sense of wonder and reverence at the universe. The ritual enactment of Pagan myths can help to transform our rational understanding of the natural world into a religious experience. Ritual also enables us to cultivate subjective states of mind which are personally healing and socially and environmentally integrative. This is especially important in our time of widespread spiritual alienation. Ritual can give rise to experiences which help motivate socially and environmentally responsible action.

So before you call someone a “non-practicing Pagan,” consider some other possibilities. Consider that their practice may just look different from yours. Or consider that, even though you have very different beliefs, their practice may actually look quite a bit like yours.

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Published by John Halstead

John Halstead is a native of the southern Laurentian bioregion and lives in Northwest Indiana, near Chicago. He is one of the founders of 350 Indiana-Calumet, which works to organize resistance to the fossil fuel industry in the Region. John was the principal facilitator of “A Pagan Community Statement on the Environment” (ecopagan.com). He strives to live up to the challenge posed by the statement through his writing and activism. John has written for numerous online platforms, including Patheos, Huffington Post, PrayWithYourFeet.org, and Gods & Radicals. He is Editor-at-Large of HumanisticPaganism.com. John also edited the anthology, "Godless Paganism: Voices of Non-Theistic Pagans". He is also a Shaper of the Earthseed community which can be found at GodisChange.org.
View all posts by John Halstead

9 thoughts on “The Shame of Being a “Non-Practicing Pagan””

I put my hand up and admit that I am a slacker. I have tried many times over the years to develop a daily spiritual practice, and failed massively. Nothing sticks. I love doing ritual – but I love doing ritual in a group. Solitary practice just isn’t my thing.

I appreciate this post greatly. My practice has shifted and, I imagine, will continue to evolve and change as I do. There are times when my practice is what sustains me through each and every day. Other times it’s that thing I do on occasion.

Even if someone is “non-practicing” so what? As long as they identify as pagan, they are pagan as far as I can see. My own practice is sporadic and ever-shifting, it comes and it goes. I have zero time any more for anyone who tries to enforce a religious test for who can be “allowed” to call themselves pagan. Ignore the trolls, John, and don’t let the fundamentalists define your paganism for you. Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.

Glad you posted this. The thing that gets me about “practicing pagan;” the idea feels like it comes out of the traditions of practicing magic as if being part of a magical lodge and as if one was training for a priesthood. Neither condition is appropriate to me or my ‘brand’ of paganism so the idea doesn’t apply to me at all. And to judge me by that measuring stick misses out entirely what my ‘brand’ of paganism is.

What level of devotion were we called to and how can anyone justify judging that based on their own biases? Eh, the whole idea of calling someone a non-practicing anything is creating an otherness, to ostracize, to shun, to ridicule them and to shame them back into ‘the fold.’ Classic us vs. them mentality and quite troublesome when dealing with diversity that exists in the Pagan community.

I don’t hold that practice and rituals is what makes a Pagan a Pagan. I’m just not that kind of Pagan. *wink*

I love the way you describe individual practices of ritual, in that:
“Through these rituals, we seek to connect to something greater than ourselves, whether that be the cosmos, the earth, the web of life, the human community, or our deeper selves.”

This makes me think about how attractive to think (or believe) that others approach, or should approach, them in the same ways we do for ourselves. Nothing like generalizing from our individual experiences!

I guess it is important to know what actually is and isn’t a Pagan. I am a Deist. I believe in “God”, but not religion. I believe that God and the Universe are one thing. I believe that living a spiritual and moral life is important, and I strive to do this… I am not 100% successful, mostly because i am Human. I believe that doing is more important than praying. If I pray it is to thank God for the Universe in which I live and for being allowed to be part of it – good or bad. I understand that if things were all good we would learn nothing, we need the bad to contrast the good, we need to make mistakes so we know how to do it right. I believe that each atomic particle within this Universe is part og God, as am I, the dog down the street, it’s owner, the grass growing in my lawn, etc. S.. am I a Pagan? Well I am not a member of any main stream Religion. Am I practicing it? I try, but not by following rituals, or praying, or reading Religious Dogma of any kind. So I leave it to you … are you a Pagan, or do you just call yourself one? Is your actions of worship real or part of a ritual that you know how to do but do not know the origins of? I submit, though people may call me Pagan and then wonder why I don’t worship a God of Antiquity, or why I don’t go to any religious rituals, or read any religious texts I am a Man who believes in God. Not the God of the Major Religions, nor those of most minor ones. I believe in a Natural God who both created and is the Universe. I don’t need to understand that. I don’t need the threat that God will send me to hell in order to try my best to live a Spiritual and/or Moral life. Why can’t we drop this division that Religion does to us? We are the HUMAN Race, not the Christian,/Muslim/fill in the blank race. We are Human despite our colors, nationalities, sexualities, religions. I wish we could just say that, instead of worrying about things like Religion and are we doing it right. sorry about the rant. I’m just an old guy who gets tired of all the divisions of non-acceptance.

The Allergic Pagan

My seasonal allergies mean that at those times of the year I most want to be surrounded by nature, it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to do so. This irony is a metaphor for an essential conflict at the core of my psyche, between the desire for communion with nature on the one hand and the desire to transcend nature on the other.

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